To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

When things go right it's hard to figure out why, but when things go wrong it's really easy.

Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright.

You might plan how you sleep but you can't plan how you wake up. He who plans how to sleep is a Planner, he who plans how to wake up is a Dreamer.

It seemed that it was not only live magicians which Mr. Norrell despised. He had taken the measure of all the dead ones too and found them wanting.

Some people are widely read. I'm thinly read.

Men take what women make and claim it as their own.Men don’t love childrenThey kill them in a heartbeat to hurt a woman

The endgame is peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula.

When the exceptional historian comes along, you have a poet.

Zeno first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave.

College ain't so much where you been as how you talk when you get back.

Perhaps I have managed some sort of longevity because I haven't won the lead roles.